Kern County Mental Health Division Publicizes Secrecy Break

Kern County Mental Health Division, CA. (KCMH) has informed a break of safeguarded health information that happened during the transfer of its administrative division in April 2016.

The break included the revelation of a partial amount of safeguarded health information of sick persons who had earlier received treatment from KCMH during September 1, to September 30, 2006.

When the administrative department moved, the previous offices were refurbished. Just one document was left over in the offices and might possibly have been seen by construction labors. The document was found by a KCMH worker upon coming back to the offices. For the duration of the time that the report was abandoned exposed, workers didn’t have access to the space.

The report had patients’ complete names, service codes, internal record numbers, as well as the unit where cure was made available. Although patients might have been categorized as having earlier received cure from KCMH and/or its freelancers, the mental health benefits received were just recognizable through their codes.

KCMH probed the case and established that the whole report had been retrieved and also no data were lost. KCMH doesn’t think the report was copied or viewed by any illegal persons. The pages were retrieved in the proper sequence and the report seemed to have been intact.

KCMH has revised procedures and policies to make sure that similar breaks of patient secrecy don’t happen in the time to come.

Update: June 24, 2016:

The secrecy break has now been transferred to the website of the Division of Health and Human Services. The break report shows 1,212 people have been impacted by the break. Sick persons have been informed if they were impacted and a mass media notice has been issued as per HIPAA Laws.